Mother and Child

So the fall day was nippy, but mother and child appeared, so we set about creating portraits. Stuart Park in Tulsa was gusting with wind, the hair bow kept falling off, and between mother and child there was static, then simpatico. The strobe I was using was whipped by the wind, whopping it cockeyed again and again, so some images were dull without light. But not all. Not this one. In this one, mother and child are not yet rosy cheeked and red-nosed from the cold. Mother and child are folded in on one another, warm like the mystery of life itself. The fall colors in the background and the angle of the tree branch bend their “amen” to what they see before them. A mother and child. Not perfect, by any means. But real—vibrant—feisty! Their feistiness was evident moments before this image was recorded, and immediately after, and throughout the portrait session. Which made everything more memorable.
As it turns out, this picture was precious to them far beyond the measure of money. Like one who found the pearl of great price, the mother could say, “We love the picture,” and then added, “Thank you.” What value will add to this portrait over the years? What words will mother and child exchange ten, twenty, thirty years from now, as they look how they were in a moment in time? Surely this, among all portraits, will be passed down, generation to generation, and one day, a little girl the age of the one in this portrait, will look upon it, marvel, and say, “So this is my mother when she was my age, so this is my grandmother in all her beauty!”

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tom@oaktree.pro

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